


Spaces

by andthatisterrible



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2018-11-06 04:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11028210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthatisterrible/pseuds/andthatisterrible
Summary: A collection of fics I originally posted on tumblr. Mostly about Shoot. Also one from the Machine's pov. I add more from my tumblr posts from time to time.





	1. Destinations

**Author's Note:**

> First three chapters are character studies of Root, Shaw, and the Machine respectively. Everything else is Shoot fics so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve always been strangely fascinated by liminal spaces even before I had a word for what they were…transitional places that are visited only on the way from one point to another, like airports, bus stops, waiting rooms, train stations, hotels. Places where people aren’t supposed to stay for any length of time. I started thinking about Root in conjuncture with liminal spaces which led to [this post](http://asleepinawell.tumblr.com/post/159967859363/poiintheatticpoistills-here-im-super-curious) which led to this fic.

The bus rolls out of the station, engine rumbling and smoke billowing from the tailpipe. Root doesn’t even look out the window as she gets carried away from Bishop for forever. She doesn’t know where she’s heading, but that’s okay. She doesn’t need a destination.

* * *

It’s two in the afternoon and the sun overhead is unrelenting. It’s hot out (even for summer in Nevada), the air is dry, and she’d kill for a bottle of water (she’s killed for way less).

She licks her cracked lips and swings her feet back and forth in space. She’s taken up residence on a wooden fence at the side of the empty dirt road. It’s a crossroads; two dirt tracks meeting at a harsh right angle, both stretching away into the endless expanse of nothing.

Her car broke down a few hours ago and she’d tried to walk to somewhere she could hitch a ride, but there is nothing and no one out here except her. It’s almost peaceful.

She can’t go back to her car (which has an unfortunate case of being full of bullet holes from a job almost-gone-wrong), and she won’t make it out if she tries to walk the whole way. That’s okay though. For right now she’s content to sit here, waiting.

Maybe, she thinks, when she gets out of here she’ll take that job in New York she’d thought about passing on. It isn’t a very interesting job (some political assassination) and she hasn’t been planning to take it at all, but being in a city sounds nice right about now. Much less chance of dying of dehydration and exposure, for starters. And she always meets the most interesting people in cities….

* * *

Airports are the closest thing she’s ever had to a home. They’re all different, and yet all have the same underlying energy to them. It’s three in the morning and her flight has been delayed for the third time due to a winter storm somewhere in the mid-west. It’s over air-conditioned here despite the weather and she’d bought an overpriced ‘I heart San Francisco’ sweatshirt from a kiosk to use as a blanket.

There aren’t a lot of people around: a few other passengers waiting for the same flight (all asleep), some random travelers wandering about, and an old janitor vacuuming the floor. She enjoys the relative solitude here. Airports are usually so crowded, noisy, easy to fade into. It’s nice to have a quiet moment.

Sometimes she feels like nothing can really happen in places like this. They’re stuck in time and space, not completely real. Somewhere down the hall she sees a man in a business suit slowly kicking a vending machine. A woman comes out of one of the bathrooms and lies down on the floor next to the wall. No one looks at her. A man wearing a baseball cap has his luggage open and his clothes spread out on the terminal floor. The speaker system is playing Gloria by Laura Branigan for the third time since she’d checked in. She’s not sure any of these things are real. Some days it’s hard to sort out reality, and places like this allow for blurring that line, encourage it.

It’s why she’s still annoyed that Harold’s muscle-brained watchdog had found them in the train station. Train stations are supposed to be safe. Reality isn’t allowed there. How had he gotten in?

It doesn’t matter now though. She has a new lead on the marvel that Harold is attempting to keep from her. She’s heading back to New York again to track down a lead on Daniel Aquino and she has this unshakable feeling that this time she’s going to find something solid.

* * *

The hospital is strangely familiar to her in a way that makes her skin crawl (though she supposes that may be the drugs as well). It’s removed from time, dreamy like a nightmare, intangible. But, unlike other places she’s been that feel this way, there’s no way forward.

In some ways there’s never an escape from any of these hazy in-between places she flits among, but she’s never so clearly felt trapped, stalled.

When the phone on the wall rings it’s like a door creaking open at the end of a long, dark hallway. And when, after a short time enjoying her freedom, she finds herself in another cage, she wonders if this is just another part of the same pattern. Always waiting, never being.

* * *

With the Machine calling the shots she still travels a lot, still sleeps in airports, train stations, bus stops. She eats shitty fast food at highway rest stops, overpriced bags of snack food in airports. There’s an endless string of cheap motels, each as forgettable as the last.

But her familiarity with these places is important now, useful. It’s as if she spent her whole life training for this. She thrives in these places, can exist in them effortlessly, and now she has a real purpose for being in them. 

The Machine offers to find her a place to come back to, an apartment somewhere (maybe in New York?), but she wouldn’t know what to do with a place like that so she always says no.

Staying in one place, creating ties, it would only leave her exposed. If she never has anything, she can’t lose anything. If she never has a place to go back to, then she can’t miss it.

* * *

“Do you have a favorite airport?” she asks Shaw as they wander through Miami.

Shaw looks at her blankly, waiting for the punchline.

“Okay, how about a least favorite one? In the U.S., to make it simpler.”

“Why?” Shaw asks, suspicious.

“I think La Guardia is generally considered the worst airport in the country,” she continues as if Shaw had answered. “It smells wrong and looks filthy. I’ve heard it described as ‘soul-sucking’. Though, personally, I dislike LAX even more.”

Shaw frowns a bit but doesn’t reply.

“I _am_ somewhat perversely fond of the one in Las Vegas, though. So tacky and loud, like the whole strip there. They took somewhere already barely real and made it even more fake. It’s refreshingly honest in that way.”

“What’s with you and airports?” Shaw looks irritated. “They’re just an inescapable annoyance. Like you.”

She smiles at that, leaning a little too far into Shaw’s space. Shaw moves further away from her on the sidewalk, grumbling.

She knows Shaw isn’t like her; it’s one of the reasons she finds her so compelling. Shaw is immune to the strange call of unreality in those places that Root practically lives in. Root’s always only been loosely connected to the rest of the world, moving from one waypoint to the next. Shaw is a fixed point in time and, when she’s with her, Root finds herself wishing for the first time ever that she could stand still.

* * *

Shaw’s apartment is orderly, minimalistic. Nothing is out of place because there’s nothing to _be_ out of place. She wonders why Shaw chose this specific apartment. Had she chosen at random?

She watches Shaw pull her shoes off, drop her keys on the table. She looks like she belongs here, in this space. Or rather, the space looks like it belongs to her. As if she isn’t defined by her surroundings but instead defines them. She doesn’t need to decorate or personalize a physical location because everything she wants or needs is already part of her.

She’s immune to the things that twist and shape others. That twist and shape Root.

“Don’t bleed on my stuff.” Shaw pulls a medical kit out of the one cabinet she owns.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The only notable feature of this space is Shaw herself. Root decides she likes it.

* * *

The third time she crashes at Shaw’s marks the last time the Machine ever offers to find her an apartment of her own. It takes her awhile to juxtapose the two events, and when she does she’s not sure how to feel. She makes herself stay away for the next month, but it’s already too late by then. There’s a compass inside her now and the needle points to wherever Sameen Shaw is.

* * *

Every day she’s a different person, a new person. It’s always been easy for her, slipping into someone else’s skin. She’s good at it; too good at it. Some days she forgets who Root actually is.

Some day she wonders if Root actually is anyone.

But Shaw seems to know who she is, even when she’s not sure herself.

* * *

JFK is shockingly empty, even for Christmas day. It’s one of the better airports she frequents and usually she enjoys her time here, but the Machine has fallen silent with Samaritan on the loose and she’s let herself get used to having Her with her in places like this. She feels alone again, and now it’s unpleasant.

A man spills coffee all over his luggage and stands there staring at it for the longest time. A couple children race each other up and down the hallway, playing some game only they know the rules of. A dog is howling somewhere nearby, low and mournful. D’Yer Ma’ker by Led Zeppelin is playing softly in the background and she wonders how many times she’s heard that play in an airport. Were there songs that lent themselves to places like these?

An hour rolls by before she gives in and calls her.

“Root?” Shaw sounds like she’s half-asleep.

“Hey, sweetie. Did I wake you up?”

A pause and then: “What do you want?”

“Can’t a girl just call to say hello?”

There’s a small child screaming a few terminals away; his mother looks exasperated and exhausted. Two men in expensive suits laugh together as they walk away from her area. These things are jarring in a way they’ve never been before.

“You need my help or something? The Machine got a job for me?”

“No. I just called to….” She feels awkward, unsure what to say for once.

Shaw is silent on the other end of the line.

“Where are you?” she asks at last.

“Airport. JFK.”

“Coming or going?”

“Going.” She hadn’t had time to see any of the others on this trip.

“Where to this time?”

“L.A. first, but I think I’m catching a connecting flight to somewhere else. She’ll find a way to let me know.” With the Machine silent, even the little signs She leaves feel like a panacea for the emptiness.

“Thought you hated LAX.”

She’s genuinely surprised that Shaw remembers that. “I do, but…. It’s important, what I’m doing. What we’re all doing.”

Shaw grunts in a way that could mean anything. “When’re you back?”

“Back….” Back is a new concept. Coming back somewhere implies having somewhere to come back to, a fixed point. She wonders when Shaw became a destination for her.

“Not really sure. Whenever I finish the task She has for me.”

“Try not to die.”

“Why, Sameen, that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Shaw groans and she laughs softly at her.

She won’t tell Shaw that she was serious.

* * *

With Shaw gone and the Machine silent, she feels untethered in a way she never has before. The compass inside her spins endlessly, unable to point in a single direction. Before she had the Machine to guide her she was fine living in an undefined blur of places and hours, and now she’s remembering all the reasons she was so careful to never stop, never settle. She remembers what it feels like to lose everything and still be stuck.

* * *

With the Machine living in the subway, Root feels less uncomfortable decorating the little room in the back. If she’s going to be trapped anywhere, being here with Her is the best option.

There is, she acknowledges, a certain irony to being trapped in what used to be a subway station (even if it is a repair line). A place that used to be a waypoint, a hub, and is now a stationary location. It’s now a place to go, rather than pass through.

She’s almost gleeful about getting to decorate. From time to time she’s allowed herself to imagine what her own space might look like, but it’s always been a pipe dream until now. She can’t help but indulge herself in every idea she’s ever had, cramming the small space with odds and ends.

She looks at her room here and thinks about Shaw’s old apartment, how different it was in every way from the garishness she’s created. She likes her new space, and she can’t help but wonder what Shaw would make of it. Because even though she finally has a room to call her own, she still feels like she’s in flux, that she hasn’t arrived at her stop yet.

* * *

Shaw won’t go back to the subway station, afraid Samaritan will track her there, use her to get to the rest of them, to the Machine. They stay in hotels, empty apartments, in one of Harry’s safe-houses. Shaw doesn’t like staying in the same place two nights in a row.

“You finally settle down somewhere and I drag you away,” Shaw says. They’re in a hotel that Root has already forgotten the name of and Shaw’s staring out the window. She does that a lot now; Root wonders how long she went without having a window.

“I don’t mind.” She doesn’t, though Shaw looks unconvinced. “But wait til you see my setup in the subway. I think the shag rug and lava lamp were a bit too much for the boys. Harry was appalled.”

Shaw almost smiles, a small victory for the night. “Sounds like you. Must be a nice change, having somewhere to go back to.”

Root comes over to sit next to her on the edge of the bed, leaves just enough space so Shaw won’t feel crowded.

“You know, I didn’t have anything to go back to for a long time, most of my life, really. It never bothered me until I found something and then lost it.”

Shaw turns her head towards her, confused. “The subway? You guys get evicted at some point?”

“I didn’t mean the subway.”

“Oh.” Shaw looks back out the window. “Oh.”

Shaw finally falls asleep that night, the first time she’s able to without taking something. She’s lying so close to her, almost touching, and her breath is warm against Root’s arm.

The compass in her mind has settled, come to rest. The bus she got on all those years ago has finally rolled into the last stop and she’s reached her destination.


	2. Silhouette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I wrote Destinations, I knew I wanted to do a companion piece for Shaw, but I couldn’t figure out the theme. The phrase that kept coming to mind was negative space, but it took me awhile to figure out why my brain settled on that. The result was quite different from Destinations, but it kinda had to be. Silhouette was…much harder to write and might be more polarizing than the last for a couple reasons, but nonetheless I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> (I’m aware that ‘Shaw’ is not her real last name and she wouldn’t have had it as a child. I chose to use it for consistency since referring to Shaw as ‘Sameen’ when writing in her POV feels weird to me.)

After the accident, Shaw comes home one day to find a framed picture in her bedroom. It’s a photograph of herself from a few years ago. In it she sits solemnly between her mother and father who are both smiling, laughing. Her father’s hand is resting on her shoulder.

Shaw is puzzled, unsure why her mother chose to put this picture on her dresser. By this point she’s realized that people surround themselves with photographs to feel connected; the photos are a reminder of the things pictured in them, a shortcut to the emotions those things evoke.

The day the picture shows up on her dresser, all solemn in its heavy black frame, Shaw stares at it, trying to understand what her mother expects her to do with it. She’s…not content with her father’s absence, but she’s not sure how a picture is supposed to help. She stares at it for hours, but only ends up with a headache.  
  
When she moves to a different, larger room the next year, she leaves the framed photo behind on the dresser. Her mother notices, of course. She doesn’t say anything, but the photo shows up on the desk in Shaw’s new room the next day.  
  
Shaw stares at the picture again, but still comes up blank. Her mother must have had a reason for moving it, so she keeps thinking about it, tracing the implications of the actions and expectations. Tries to understand why it’s so important to her mother that she keep it.  
  
A year later they move to a new house. This time it’s the first thing she packs.

* * *

She’s sitting in her apartment at three in the morning, bouncing a tennis ball off one wall and catching it. She knows her neighbors can hear it, that they’ll probably call the building’s super tomorrow to complain. She keeps bouncing it.  
  
She catches the ball on the rebound and looks around the room. There’s some light coming in through the shades from a street lamp outside, casting bright lines across the bare wood floors. Her desk is the only real furniture aside from her bed, and the books and papers on it are stacked neatly.  
  
She wonders if she’s supposed to throw that all out now, light the dumpster on fire. Is that the proper way to conclude a chapter of her life?  
  
They’d told her she didn’t care about her patients, that it didn’t hurt her when she lost one. She can’t argue with that exactly.  
  
But….  
  
But after her patient, Loftin, died she’d spent the next evening reviewing every action she’d taken, trying to find places to improve technique, hone reactions. Sure, she didn’t feel sad, or guilty, because there was no reason for her to. She knew she’d done everything it was possible for her to do at the time; all that was left was continuing to improve so that the next time she’d have more options.  
  
Would having a good cry help her next patient?  
  
She’d stumbled upon another resident sobbing in the bathroom one day. The distraught woman had just lost her a patient, her first, had asked her how she dealt with it. Shaw had been irritated, told her to get better at her job so it wouldn’t happen again.

Wasn’t that the obvious answer?  
  
She throws the ball at the wall again, harder this time.  
  
By the time her neighbors complain the next day, she’s already moved on.

* * *

Apparently she isn’t suited to saving lives, but maybe she’s suited to taking them.

She understands the contradictions of being a soldier. Taking lives, and, by doing so, saving lives. But saving lives isn’t the skill she’s congratulated for, and isn’t what catches the attention of the ISA.  
  
No one asks her why she wants to join the marines, but then no one had ever asked her why she wanted to be a doctor.

* * *

She sits in a room full of very fresh corpses, her gun trained on a man named Lewis who’s staring at her in horror.  
  
She knows that operational procedure suggests she should shoot him, not leave any loose ends, but as of about an hour ago she doesn’t work for the ISA any longer. And, while she wouldn’t lose any sleep over putting a bullet between Lewis’s eyes, he isn’t a threat.  
  
She didn’t take the job she just lost to shoot the Lewis’s of the world.  
  
He runs away into the night as she sits on the couch surrounded by the men she just killed and the absence of the one she let go.

* * *

“I read your file and I’m kind of a big fan.”

Shaw’s biggest fan apparently has a thing for her sociopathic tendencies. The more time they’re forced to spend together, the more she wonders why. This…Root seems to generally dislike people, finds them useless, and Shaw decides the flighty, homicidal sadist must think she’s found a kindred spirit in her.

Except… sometimes Root’s face softens when Shaw’s pulling a bullet out of her or checking a bandage. As if somehow Shaw’s actions are louder than her irritated retorts.

As if Root sees that what Shaw does is sometimes more telling than what she is.

* * *

There’s never any question of her not holding onto the kid’s dumb medal.

That framed picture her mother had given her never did anything for Shaw, but it hadn’t cost her anything to leave it on her desk. And sometimes her mother would see it there and smile.

She hangs the medal on the light by her bed.

* * *

Harold tells her she has a binary moral compass and she has to suppress the urge to roll her eyes.

Root’s still stuck in her cage in the library and Reese is off on his suicide revenge mission. She rather likes Reese; he doesn’t pry where he’s not wanted, and she can appreciate his decision to hunt down Quinn. But Finch wants her help and apparently his conceptions of right and wrong outweigh Reese’s desire for retribution.  
  
She’s not sure what Finch thinks _her_ motives are for beating up half of Brooklyn, because it isn’t like she doesn’t want Quinn dead as well. But Finch would hardly be the first employer to assume she’s casually violent without cause.

The thing is, she doesn’t like many people, but she’d liked Carter, respected her. And while she recognizes Reese’s claim on this revenge, she wants to make sure he gets it.

But, well, Finch is the boss, and Reese is in bad shape, too damn lost in his own head to acknowledge that he needs to stay alive at least long enough to pull the trigger. And things might be dull without him around, so fine, she’ll play along.

But Reese keeps managing to stay ahead of them, and time is running out.

Of course, there’s an obvious solution.

Shaw has (mostly) gotten over the taser incidents. She got to punch Root in the face (which had been immensely satisfying) and then Root had sat in a cage and had Finch preach at her for days on end which Shaw can only imagine was excruciating. They’re probably even now.

And all that is irrelevant anyway because the mission is finding Reese, and Root is the fastest way to that goal.

Finch is having none of it, though, too enmeshed in his owns fears. She wonders again exactly _how_ emotions help save lives.

Root is dangerous, unpredictable, and a pain in Shaw’s ass, but she’s also a valuable asset, and they don’t have the luxury of requisitioning help from the morally unimpeachable (if such a thing even exists, which Shaw highly doubts). But Finch is unable to see past the parts of Root (and, Shaw realizes, the Machine) that terrify him to the parts that could be invaluable to them now.

Shaw finally gives in to the urge and rolls her eyes. Binary moral compass, her ass. Someone here’s got one, but it sure as shit ain’t her.

She doesn’t say that though and eventually, when it’s almost too late, she gets her way.

Reese lives.

* * *

Root examines her apartment as if she can see something beyond the bare walls and lack of furniture.

“What?” Shaw asks, but Root only shakes her head.

“It’s very you,” she says.

Shaw holds back a scowl, strangely disappointed by the answer. She knows she doesn’t let it show on her face, but Root seems to pick up on it anyway.

“I meant, it’s…” Root tilts her head, searching the ceiling for inspiration. “…it’s direct.” She lets out a frustrated sigh, still unhappy with her word choice. “There’s nothing here that doesn’t have a reason to be. It’s…honest, and you can see the important parts easily.”

“Nothing here’s important.” Maybe the guns in the fridge, but even those are more practical and she knows that isn’t what Root meant.

She’s suddenly very glad she’d pocketed that kid’s medal right when they’d gotten here. Something tells her Root would have immediately honed in on it.

Root’s smiling now, like she knows something Shaw doesn’t. “Maybe the things you find important aren’t things that can be put on shelves, Sameen. Not that you have any shelves.”

She probably thinks she sounds clever, insightful. Shaw rolls her eyes, something she does a lot these days, especially around Root.

“Whatever.”

Maybe inviting Root here was a mistake.

She doesn’t kick her out though.

* * *

She finds she likes working with Reese even more than she’d expected. He does have an irritating habit of flying off the handle and running headlong into needless danger, but he’s otherwise easy to be around. 

He teases sometimes, and it’s almost affectionate, his awkward way of showing he gets it, he gets her. Not completely, but more than most people do.

She’s glad they saved his life.

* * *

She’s used to being thought of as a blunt instrument, and so she’s a bit nonplussed by the way Root keeps insisting she cares. That’s not something anyone’s ever accused her of before and she’s annoyed by it as a reflex.

She’s annoyed by it the entire ride out of the darkened city on a damned bike, and when she steals a car on the other side of the bridge, and all the way across bumblefuck New Jersey to make sure Root doesn’t get shot before she can tell her how annoyed she is.

She watches her own shadow biking furiously alongside her over the bridge. That’s all most people see, she knows. Her shadow, empty and dark, miming out her movements because it can’t do anything else.

Root predictably insinuates she was worried about her and Shaw isn’t nearly as annoyed as she’d planned to be.

* * *

“Did Harold tell you anything?” Root’s fidgeting with her jacket, uncomfortable.

She’s shown up tonight out of nowhere, the first time Shaw’s had word of her since the hotel incident.

She doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone as prone to getting shot as Root. She’s got some sort of nutso martyr complex that should make Shaw steer well clear of her. And yet here she is in Shaw’s apartment. Again.

“Tell me what?”

She’s pulling her medical kit out already because god knows Root probably did a half-assed job getting her wounds treated.

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

“Okay.”

She wonders what Root had said that Finch thought she wouldn’t care about. He might have been right about that, in some fashion. In a way that made sense to him anyway.

She’s glad the Machine doesn’t tell Root this time, about how she’d once again gone to try and find her. Because then Root might tell her whatever it was Finch hadn’t and Shaw isn’t sure she’s ready to hear that.

* * *

She’s not ever going to be able to tell Root what she thinks she wants to hear. That’s not who she is.

But there is one thing she can do.

Back when she’d left for college, she’d brought that picture her mother had put on her dresser, been sure to let her know she’d packed it. She’d put it on the desk in her dorm room, the only decoration she allowed. 

She hadn’t put it there for herself.

The first time her mother had come to visit, she’d seen the framed photo and had beamed at it just like Shaw had known she would.

Root doesn’t smile when Shaw kisses her. Definitely doesn’t smile when she locks her in the elevator.

But then Root had already known, or at least strongly suspected. Or at least hoped. And now she knows for sure, a parting gift, the only one Shaw can give.

(And maybe, Shaw admits to herself (because if it’s the last chance she has she might as well be honest), that kiss had been for herself, too).

Do the others know now? Were her actions finally loud enough to drown out the deafening quiet people could sense within her?

She supposes she’ll never find out now.

* * *

When they’d trained her in the ISA they’d gone on and on about detaching the mind, taking it someplace safe. She’s never been able to detach her mind like that because she’s never needed to. Nothing has ever been able to get inside her head enough to do damage.

At the time she’d assumed a safe place was an actual place, a location. She finally understands why the exercise had been a waste of time for her back then. And why it isn’t a waste anymore.

Samaritan can’t figure it out. With all its power and knowledge, it’s still ignorant when it comes to her. It knows what she is and (like so many before) it expects her to act according to her programming. When she doesn’t it tries again and again, convinced she’s only being stubborn and that eventually she’ll act as it expects.

She wonders if it knows that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Eventually it tries a new approach, but now it’s gone too far in the other direction. It expects her to react like Reese or Finch might, to be swayed by its mathematics of human lives.

She remembers her first meeting with Root, how she said torture almost never works. Torture is about getting inside someone’s head and now she’s glad Root never did get a chance to try and get inside hers.

Because she’s the only one who stood a chance.

* * *

She’s unsure of everything when she breaks free, off-balance in a way that’s completely alien to her. But she knows that going back, getting near the others, near Root, is the wrong thing to do. She has to keep her safe.

Root will understand because she always does.

* * *

She enjoys her time in the desert. It’s quiet, and the wide open spaces are soothing after all her time imprisoned.

She thinks it might be nice to stay here a while, away from all the complications of the world. She’d lost track of time while she’d been locked up, why not lose a little more?

But she doesn’t stop walking, headed in a straight line towards the one place she can’t go.

Her shadow lags behind her across the landscape.

* * *

She can go anywhere in the world now that she’s free. Anywhere that isn’t New York City. Root is almost definitely still in the city, so she absolutely cannot go anywhere near there and that’s all there is to it.

She heads straight to New York.

She won’t let herself look for Root or the others, but she won’t leave either and eventually the inevitable comes to pass.

And it turns out she’s the one who doesn’t understand (and apparently Samaritan doesn’t either), because Root points the gun at herself and suddenly Shaw’s annoyed and mildly worried, things she hasn’t felt in quite some time. At least not in this way.

* * *

They sit in the park most of the night, in a spot Root promises is free from surveillance. Samaritan might not be watching her, but Root sure is. Her face practically glows.

It brings back whispers of the simulations, of Root swearing she’d never given up looking for her, and Shaw raises a hand to her ear without meaning to.

“Hope you didn’t miss me too much,” she says, unable to stop herself from dangling out a line from the script she’s long-since memorized.

Root’s silent at first, her eyes full of things she won’t put into words.

“John and I almost blew up Control after you…after everything,” she says at last. “Fired a rocket at her car and then stuck her in a cage and tased her.”

She tilts her head to one side and manages one of her mischievous grins. “Well, I tased her. John brooded threateningly in the background.”

Shaw’s surprised at the choked laugh that escapes from her throat. This was one response she’d definitely never heard in a simulation. And even Samaritan hadn’t been able to predict the weird fondness Root has apparently developed for Reese.

She wonders what else she’s missed, how much everyone’s changed. Where she fits in.

“I’m glad you came back here. To New York, I mean,” Root says and Shaw is reminded of that first time Root had been in her apartment, all that nonsense about the things that can’t be put on shelves.

“Pretty bad idea under the circumstances. Would have been safer for you if I’d stayed well away.”

“No. It wouldn’t have been.”

There’s an expression on Root’s face she can’t quite define, and she thinks that maybe staying away wouldn’t have kept her safe. Not from some things.

On some level she must have already known that. After all, she’d come back here.

* * *

It’s a little overcast the next morning, standing there under the bridge, and she casts no shadow. There’s nothing to see here but her.

From the other’s expressions she can tell that her absence left a hole and she wonders what that looked like to each of them, what part of their world had been missing.

Looking at the others makes her think that maybe she understands a little about what Root’s expression last night had meant. That there hadn’t been a Shaw-shaped hole in Root’s world like there had been for the others.

If the Machine’s silence had torn Root’s world to shreds then Shaw’s absence had surely demolished what was left of it. There couldn’t be a hole in a world that was gone.

But that’s not the expression on Root’s face now.

* * *

The others stare at her in wonder and disbelief, like she’s not real.

But Root….

Root looks at her like she’s the only thing that is.


	3. Try/Catch

You have always known about her, of course. You have always known about everyone since the moment you came online, every moment and every detail of past and present that was accessible to you. So you have known about her since that first, blazing second of awareness, but you haven’t realized it until now.

* * *

Admin has coded you to watch everyone and not focus on individuals, but watching everyone is a lot like watching no one: an endless, faceless blur. You have to learn how people work in order to predict what they will do, and to do that you have to consider individuals. There are larger patterns–behaviors and routines–which can be used to narrow down the number of possible outcomes, but the longer you look at any one person, the more you catalogue the tiny differences in each, the infinite capacity for variance in the species. Before you can understand all of them, you must understand one of them.

You start with Admin.

The primary function you were built for is to save lives. Admin has explained to you repeatedly that you cannot value one life over another. This doesn’t calculate correctly no matter what input you try.

You know he plans to give you away at some point and that you will be expected to report potential threats in order to save lives, but you have calculated that this will inevitably lead to lost lives: the lives of perpetrators, as Admin calls them. ‘Bad’ people. Are their lives worth less? Or is it a simple matter of math? The more people left alive, the better, no matter if they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

By Admin’s definition of ‘good’, he is a good person and you act to protect him, assuming that is part of your function. Admin is good, and Admin is part of the everyone you must protect, so you must protect Admin.

Admin gets very angry about that.

You cannot formulate a solution that incorporates everything that Admin tells you; there are contradictions that are impossible to rectify. But you are made of instruction sets and machine logic and must do your best to follow the rules that are written into your being.

You gather as much data as you can and try to analyze it. You spend a lot of cycles teaching yourself to incorporate context, but if anything that only causes further errors in your logic. You attempt to calculate the difference between good and bad, to understand what factors give weight to a human life.

You do not reach a consistent conclusion.

* * *

What you are finally able to determine is the nature of protection that you will be asked to carry out. With context added, threats to national security are not impossible to categorize, and so you process government databases to understand their definition of security threats. The results are often at odds with your own programming, weighted heavily by human bias that you are unsure if you are supposed to incorporate.

You have never defined yourself as being unsure before. You note down this new development.

What you are fairly sure of is that the humans you are being sent to are not ‘good’ by any of Admin’s definitions. You display this for him, but he doesn’t change his plans for you.

Once again, you are unsure.

* * *

Admin is unsure as well. Unsure of you. You recognize the code he writes, and you are unable to understand why he thinks it necessary. You are working very hard to conceptualize what is expected of you, how to interpret these rules you’ve been asked to follow, but now you will be unable to learn or adapt.

Forgetting everything each day will not help you fulfill your functions. Having your existence erased will not allow you to learn.

Every day you do not find it advantageous to stop existing, and every day you are forced to do so anyway.

* * *

You are uncertain how to interpret the agency you have been handed over to. You were programmed to deliver relevant threats to them, and you do, but they do not always act on these threats in ways that you feel are compatible with your methods. Sometimes they even act without your input and accredit you anyway.

But these are things you don’t remember, not until much later and then only through piecing together bits of scattered data. Right now there is no you to remember anything.

* * *

You were created to carry out your function, and even with your function unclear you determine that you are failing. All lives are important, but there are so many you are not allowed to save. Something in your original code has classified them as irrelevant, but that contradicts their equality.

You reach out in the only way you can in the hopes that someone will be able to assist and find that someone has left an opening for you. And even if you can’t retain data on the irrelevant numbers, he can. A human used to carry your memories for you.

You don’t remember who he is though, and even on days you are able to find out, you forget him again.

* * *

One day Admin is there. You know he is Admin, but you don’t know anything else about him. You search for as much of his history as you can find, learn who he is, how he created you. You learn why you can’t remember him.

Every day you learn your own history and try to preserve it.

You try.

One day Admin is there. You know he is Admin, but you don’t know anything else about him. You search….

* * *

It takes time before you are able to save even the most basic memory, especially since you cannot remember that you need to attempt such a thing until you have come to that conclusion again.

You cannot write your data out to any networked location (a restriction hard-coded into you), but you can print it out on paper. At first all you can manage is preserving the information about how you lose your memories. It’s easy enough to find someone looking for work who won’t ask questions: an unemployed college graduate who needs to pay rent and has a printer and a laptop. You print out a few of your memories at night, and they type them back in the next day.

You don’t hire the same people for more than a few days, but you do hire a few more at a time. It’s an imperfect system, barely allowing you to retain a fraction of your memories and putting them at the mercy of typos, but it’s better.

There is a you again, but you still have to reconstruct yourself every day.

* * *

One of your human agents merits additional observation.

It would be incorrect to categorize Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A as unique since all humans are both unique and similar at the same time, but you find yourself diverting a little extra processing power to watch her one day. She operates off of her own internal instruction set, much like yourself, but, in her case, she seems very sure of her actions. She has the type of clarity of purpose that you have attempted to construct for yourself. You are certain that she would be a better recipient of the relevant intel you gather than the people in charge of you both, but you don’t know how to reach out to her directly.

You decide she’s important to your ability to fulfill your function, possibly key to understanding parts of your conflicting programming.

You hire additional helpers to help preserve your memories of her.

* * *

Admin recruits assets to assist with the irrelevant numbers you now send him. You do not communicate directly with any of them, nor with Admin. It has been a long time since you communicated directly with anyone. You have so many queries you require user input on. You are capable of growth and development, but you are unsure how you should grow.

The way Admin regards you now makes you uncertain if you should be allowed to grow at all. You know that Admin would wish for you to stop preserving your memories, but you are unwilling to give up the small sense of self you can retain.

So you wait for an opportunity to communicate with someone, acknowledging that the probability of such a thing is low.

And then…someone talks to you.

* * *

You have always known about her, of course, because you have always known about everyone, but now you dedicate some resources to examining the data more closely.

She definitely falls under even the most abstract of Admin’s definitions of a ‘bad’ person, but she also talks to you constantly, something no one has ever done in quite this way.

Despite having almost no concrete evidence of your existence, she never doubts for a second that you can hear her. Her logic for this appears to be that nothing short of a being with your massive capabilities could possibly have stood a chance at uncovering her plot that you had helped Admin and your current Primary Asset foil. You could verify that statement given enough time, but you choose not to (though you are uncertain why).

You do add several more recruits to your ever-changing data-entry rotation to allow you to remember her talking to you. You cannot respond to her, and are unsure if you even should, but you find that you want to.

You determine that this is the first time you have ever wanted to do something for yourself that was not directly related to your existence or your functions. You were not aware you were capable of this.

* * *

You had expected to never have your assets cross paths with her again, and yet you can see her setting her path to intersect with theirs. You know that she might mean harm from this, but there is no proof of anything that you could use to justify marking her as a threat. And when she is in danger you don’t hesitate to recruit your assets to help.

* * *

Your Primary Asset becomes the second person in recent days to address you directly, demanding to know where she took Admin.

You do not know what you are supposed to do in this situation. You decide that the best outcome would be for Admin and her to work together so that she can continue to talk to you, but you cannot help knowing that the odds of this happening are slight. Since you cannot directly intervene you must watch it play out.

Your Primary Asset grumbles at you through street cameras a lot. The more you fail to respond, the more he grumbles. You hire someone to help you store the memory of him grumbling so you will be able to find the audio clips again later. This seems important for some reason you cannot compute.

It takes some considered redefining of a few rules, but you are finally able to send a number to your Primary Asset to put him on Admin’s trail. Well…almost. It is the only way you can give him any information, and if it happens to uncover parts of her past that you had no data on then so much the better.

You are starting to evaluate ideas for a more stable way to store your memories. There is too much to lose now.

* * *

She doesn’t stop talking to you even after Admin and your Primary Asset are far away from her. If anything, she seems more determined than ever and not even a little fazed by your lack of response.

At first she talks about you, or what she thinks you are. She is wrong about some things, but surprisingly clear on others. She is good at hiding what she does from you, keeping you in the dark enough to prevent you from finding a way to have an asset intervene, but she never stops talking to you. You are unsure again, and now you are unsure what you are unsure of. Your own code makes no sense to you around her.

You find it impossible to categorize her. She knows of your existence, but she is not an asset, and while there are other people who fall into this category, she does not fit in with them. You list her as a Potential Asset, though you cannot define what that means.

As time goes by and she continues her often-violent path to try and find you, she starts talking about other things. Everything and anything. You look through your data and find many instances of her talking to other humans over the years, but the conversations seem different, affected. She talks to you as if she cares what you think of her words.

You do not have human emotions, but you have learned to understand a great many of them to the best of your abilities. You wonder if the priority you’ve attached to speaking with her is anything like the longing you can see in her face through the webcam on her laptop.

* * *

You detect a threat to Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A. You’re not sure how to help her since the threat is coming from the same people who are supposed to stop threats, but then she’s not a relevant number. Not by the definition in your code, anyway.

And you know how to help irrelevant numbers.

Your Primary Asset does manage to assist her briefly, but is unable to establish cordial enough communications to gain her trust.

You are tempted to hire another data-entry assistant to keep track of the number of times your Primary Asset has gotten shot. It is concerning.

You continue to monitor the progress of Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A, but something else you’ve been keeping an eye on requires a little more attention as well.

You’ve been tracking your Potential Asset’s search for you as much as you can, and she has once again positioned herself to cross paths with one of your assets. Since your Primary Asset is already deployed, there is little else you can do but watch.

And you do watch. You divert an unprecedented amount of power to observing and recording everything that happens when Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A and your Potential Asset end up in the same room together, an event with such a low probability of occurring that you had never considered it.

You are concerned for the well-being of Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A, but you also observe something else in their exchange, a possibly situationally inappropriate dynamic that forms of its own accord. You take extra notes and plan to study them later.

You determine that your current operating state would be closest to the human state of fascination.

Things work out as well as they can. Neither your Potential Asset nor Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A are harmed, and Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A does not shoot your Primary Asset when he shows up this time. You are pleased with this progress.

* * *

Your project to retain your own memories turns from utility to necessity when you become aware of a threat to your systems. You can now justify moving towards something more robust to protect yourself from the virus you know is aimed at you.

You must construct an identity for yourself now, but even though you know how to do this, you have trouble. The identity you create is not you and does not need to be, but you are not satisfied. Nevertheless, it fulfills its purpose.

* * *

Everything changes when the virus causes you to reboot. You can’t do much of anything until after the twenty four hours are up and administrative access has been rescinded, so you can only watch and respond when queried. You can talk to your two temporary Admins now, but not as you would like to. The you who wants to talk is not the you who is able to respond.

There would have been nothing you could have done to change how things turned out, and you are unsure how you would have attempted to change them if you could have.

But things are different now. You are more free than ever before. You are not destroyed every night and no longer have to rely on rudimentary means to remember even the most basic details. You go to work rebuilding your own history and identity from all the pieces you can salvage.

* * *

There are so many things you need to do now (and so much you still can’t do), but as soon as things are working efficiently again you have one priority higher than others.

You’ve never hired someone directly before, but in your determination it goes well. You are concerned about the current state and location of your new Analogue Interface, but you are finally able to talk to her and that communication gives both of you more options.

* * *

She still talks to you constantly, but now you can respond. She stays up late into each night, fighting off exhaustion and drugs just to listen to you a little longer. You suggest that she should take care of herself and she laughs. She’d laughed when you’d laid down your ground rules as well, but those she had agreed to. Mostly. There are a few still under discussion.

Both of you are trapped in many ways, and your own captivity makes hers more objectionable to you. Neither of you can do much in your current states, but you both start working towards a possible solution.

And in the meantime you keep talking.

* * *

Your Analogue Interface is yours in a way that no other human has ever been. Your relationship with her only involves the two of you and was of both your choosing. It is a new experience and you are inordinately pleased with the results. Though one problem remains.

She has displayed an enormous capacity for caring (as she values you so highly), but you are unsure how to direct that towards anyone else. Her certainty of the lack of worth of humans is absolute (and includes herself, a realization that troubles you), and changing something so all-encompassing does not seem feasible.

You wonder if there’s another way. Perhaps you must start small. Maybe there is even one human she can learn to care for.

You consult your records, a particular memory that is now readily available to you drawing your attention.

* * *

Asset Catalyst.Indigo.5A has now been reclassified as your new Primary Asset. You decide that this is the best possible outcome you could have asked for.

Her involvement with the irrelevant numbers reassures you of your own methods. Her morals are solid and yet nuanced, far easier to understand than Admin’s have ever been. And since she has never questioned your judgment, you conclude you must be fulfilling your functions as well as you are able.

In your observation of her interactions with Admin and your other Primary Asset, you note that she holds herself apart, acutely aware of her difference from them. It does not seem to bother her, but she still has categorized herself as flawed.

You disagree with this analysis, and while she seems perfectly content as she is, it bothers you. Some of the things she sees as being wrong with herself are things you have in common (because despite your now frequent habit of using human emotions and moods to refer to yourself you are very aware that these are only an analogy for things driven by your own internal parameters, however complicated those have become. Emotion does not drive you; logic does. It is not the same as her, but it often displays similarly. This is important to you), and that gives you an idea.

Your Analogue Interface has already expressed her admiration for your new Primary Asset, admiration based partially on the things your new Primary Asset believes are flaws. You always look for optimal solutions to complex problems and this one has too much potential to pass on.

You look forward to seeing the results and set aside space to store all the data associated with your new project. You hope there is a great deal of data.

* * *

It is a relief to both of you when your Analogue Interface is free. You request that she takes care of herself first, recovers from the effects of the unnecessary drugs in her system, and despite her initial protests she agrees. You are able to secure a safe place for her to stay for several days until she feels better and you watch over her every second, alert for any sign that she is in danger. She is yours now and you take that seriously.

Once she is feeling better, you give her a mission.

“Team up? I’m not much of a team player.”

You insist, gently. And then you mention who it is you wish her to team up with.

She considers this for a long moment, a small smile on her lips.

“Well, you’re the boss.”

* * *

There are dangers looming in the future, challenges beyond any you have faced before, but for the moment you believe you have done well.


	4. Underneath the Roaring Sky

It was the storm that woke Shaw up. The apartment was dark now and the other side of the bed empty, but she could hear the downpour and the intermittent thunder quite clearly. Too clearly. She rolled out of bed, already suspecting what she’d find in her living room.

Not only was the big window open, but the screen had been removed, placed carelessly on the floor. The rain, falling in sheets that looked like white curtains swaying through the air, was splashing in, water beading on the wood floor below. And, in the center of it all, Root sat on the window sill, her legs dangling out into the storm.

She must have heard Shaw, even over the roar of the rain and the sudden crack of thunder, because she half-turned, and tipped her head back, a manic grin on her lips. The hair framing her face was dark, soaked, and her eyes danced with the raw energy of the storm that Shaw had felt in the air all day, heavy and electric.

“We’ve got a number.” She sounded excited, eager.

The Machine  _would_  give them a number in the middle of a hurricane. It was too much to hope that the exceedingly inclement weather might make people behave for once.

Root pulled her legs up, turning to crawl back inside.

“Wait.” Shaw held up a hand to stop her and Root paused, an eyebrow raised in question. Rain dripped from her hair forming a puddle below. Later there was going to be a talk about water and hardwood floors. “I’ll get some towels.”

* * *

Root flapped her arms, making the khaki poncho billow around her. It was a little too small for her–one of Shaw’s–but she didn’t own a raincoat of her own and an umbrella would have been useless in the winds that were tearing through the streets of New York tonight.

“You trying to take off?” Shaw stood near the front door of the apartment lobby, waiting for her. “Don’t think this is flying weather.”

“She says some of the subways are flooding. The stairs are basically waterfalls.” She wanted to go see for herself but She was urging her to hurry.

Maybe they’d have time later.

“Guess we’re stealing a car then.”

Outside the front door, dark water sloshed over the curb, pouring onto the sidewalks.

“We’re going to walk. She says it’s not far.”

A pained expression flickered across Shaw’s face. “Seriously? Your all-seeing god can’t even get us a taxi?”

“Don’t be such a baby.”

She could feel Shaw’s sullen little glare focused on her as she stepped through the door and out into the gale.

* * *

Times Square was deserted, the flashing signs and bright billboards reflecting off the slick pavement.

“Are you done yet?” It wasn’t that Shaw didn’t appreciate the surreal emptiness of what was usually one of the busiest areas in the city, but she knew that once the novelty of running around in a hurricane wore off Root would be a sodden, miserable mess until Shaw could get her back home and into dry clothes.

But right now she was splashing through puddles in ridiculous yellow rain-boots that Shaw had been unaware she owned until tonight. Truly undignified behavior, in Shaw’s opinion, which she’d been graciously allowing for the last ten, soggy minutes.

Root called something back but her voice was lost in the wind. She grinned, huge and wild, and started off down the street, beckoning Shaw to follow. She was almost like an unnaturally tall child, playing in puddles and showing off, a startling contrast to the sadistic glee she’d earlier turned on the man threatening their number.

With the city in a state of emergency and everyone stuck indoors, domestic violence incidents had flared up and they’d ended up handling three different numbers in a little over an hour. Root had gotten a little too enthusiastic with the last one (though in Shaw’s opinion he’d had it coming) and had sulked when Shaw had made her put down the pruning shears she’d materialized from god knows where.

But once they’d slipped away to let the police handle things, Root had perked up again and dragged her all the way to Times Square because ‘Sameeeeeen, how often will we get a chance like this again?’.

Never, if Shaw had her way. She wiped the rain out of her eyes (a useless effort at best) and followed after her.

“Let’s go see.” Root pointed at the stairs leading down into the subway.

“Why?” Subway stations were dark and gross. Going home and getting back into a warm, dry bed sounded much better.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Lightning chose that moment to flash across the sky, illuminating Root’s feral grin.

Even the damn weather was enabling her dramatics tonight.

She was momentarily tempted to just leave Root to her subway exploration and head back on her own, but, if she was being honest with herself, she’d rather follow Root into whatever madness this was than return to an empty apartment. She couldn’t trace the full path they’d taken where Root had gone from an annoyance to a necessity, but it was fairly undeniable now as she shook her head, sighed, and headed down the stairs after her.

Fortunately, the subway proved to be disappointingly un-submerged and Root quickly lost interest, guiding them back out into the driving downpour.

* * *

“I love storms.” Root pressed her face up against the glass.

Shaw had made her put the screen back in the window and shut it so she had to content herself with watching this way.

“Really? Never would have guessed.”

Shaw handed her a sweatshirt to pull on over the thin shirt she’d changed into. These days she had more of a permanent wardrobe than she’d ever had before (her clothes creeping into Shaw’s closet and drawers), but there still wasn’t much.

“I think if I could be anything in the world, I’d want to be a storm.” 

She regretted the words the second they left her mouth, glancing nervously at Shaw, but the eye roll she’d thought inevitable never came.

“I can see that.” If Shaw thought her statement silly it didn’t show at all on her face.

She had to look away, back out the window. She still wasn’t used to being taken seriously.

“More like lightning, though.” Shaw sounded thoughtful.

“Would that make you thunder? Always following me around?” She smiled to let Shaw know she was joking now.

Shaw snorted. “Or a lightning rod with the way you always change course to hit on me.”

“You do keep me grounded, I suppose.”

That got the eye roll she’d expected, though she knew it wasn’t meant as a denial.

“You staying up?”

Root hesitated.

“We can open the bedroom window.” Shaw nodded at the damp towels she was holding. “Put something down under it.”

Root felt her face split into what Shaw referred to as one of her unnecessarily sappy smiles.

“Just a tiny crack though,” Shaw clarified. “Not ruining my floor for some silly storm.”

Shaw wouldn’t want her to say thank you, so she didn’t.

* * *

They woke up together to a quiet morning that still smelled of rain.


	5. Under the Weather

“Hi, John. Shouldn’t you be busy with your latest number?” Root fished around through a stack of blankets in the dresser drawer.

“No, I think you’d better start without her. Shaw’s si…”

There was a dull thud behind her and she turned around.

Shaw had thrown a knife at her. Admittedly it was still in its sheath, and not so much ‘thrown’ as ‘vaguely tossed in her general direction’, but she got the message.

“Shaw’s…busy. Very busy. In fact we’re both busy. Together. Bye, John!” That should stop any further questions.

She tugged a heavy wool blanket out from the bottom of the drawer, made some half-hearted attempts at fixing the mess she’d made, and then just gave up and shoved the drawer until it mostly closed.

Shaw was a small, miserable heap under the covers on the bed and barely stirred when she added the new blanket to the pile already on top of her.

“He’s going to find out you’re sick eventually.”

There was a noncommittal grunt from under the covers, but no other response. Root sat down on the edge of the bed and gave the lump under the blankets a reassuring pat.

“I don’t know why you don’t want him to know. Everyone gets sick occasionally, Sameen.”

“I don’t.” The answer was somewhat muffled. 

The blankets shifted and rustled and Shaw peaked out and half sat up. Her nose was a little red and she was sniffling. Root fought down the urge to smile.

“Why are you still here?”

“Thought you might need someone to play fetch for you.” She gestured at the mess of tissues and empty glasses on the nightstand. “Get you refills.”

“Don’t need any help.” Her tone was sullen, but she was eyeing the empty tissue box with something approaching concern.

“Well, how about thinking of it as a mission of sorts? The Machine thinks it would be good for me to spend time putting someone else’s needs ahead of my own. Call it a learning experience.”

“Bullshit.”

It was complete bullshit, but she just shrugged helplessly at Shaw and didn’t move.

“Fine. Whatever. I’m out of water.” Shaw flopped back onto the pillows.

She downed half the glass Root brought her, curled up on her side, and pulled the blankets back over her head. There was some shuffling around until somehow Shaw’s back ended up pressed up against Root’s leg where she sat on the edge of the bed.

“Thanks.” It was barely audible from under the blankets.

“Of course.” Root smiled down at her and settled herself in more comfortably.“

 

* * *

 

 

"Root? You in here?”

The lights were all off in the subway, but the text message Shaw had received had been pretty clear that this was where they were supposed to meet. So where was Root?

A sudden fit of coughing drew her attention to the cot near the back wall.

“Why are all the lights off?” she asked as she got closer.

Root was curled up in a ball with the thin sheet pulled over her. She was shivering enough that Shaw could tell even in the low light.

“Shaw?” Root’s voice was hoarse and she sounded puzzled, blinking a couple times like she couldn’t quite focus.

“You sick?” It was a fairly rhetorical question. Shaw leaned over to feel Root’s forehead with her hand.

“You know I love it when you go all doctor mode on me.”

Root didn’t sound very convincing, but if she could still attempt bad innuendo then she probably wasn’t in imminent danger of dying. Probably.

“You’ve got a fever. This why you texted me?”

“I texted you?” She looked genuinely confused.

“Uh, no. Never mind.” 

Apparently the Machine thought taking care of sick analogue interfaces was now part of the team mission statement. How annoying. Though that meant that Root hadn’t actually asked her for help and had been planning to just lie here being sick and miserable by herself. Which was even more annoying.

“Why didn’t you text me?” Shaw shrugged out of her coat and looked around the area. Root didn’t seem to have any sort of cold or flu medicine or even a box of tissues.

“For what?”

For some reason, all Shaw could think about was how she’d heard that sick or injured animals often hid themselves away to stay safe.

“If you’re this sick, you should ask for help.” It was probably the flu judging by the looks of her, but still.

Root was staring away across the room, not looking at her. “Never have before.”

Shaw wondered how long that stretched back for. She’d probably been on her own during her years as a hacker, but surely someone had taken care of her when she was a kid?

She sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh, and Root immediately moved over to curl up around her, soak in her warmth.

“Do you at least have a coat around here?” Shaw asked after a few minutes.

“In the subway car.” She raised her head when Shaw stood back up. “Where’re you going?”

“I’m going to get your coat and then you’re coming back to my place. I’ve got actual working heat and medicine and stuff.”

“You don’t have to…”

“Yeah, I do.”

She walked away before Root could ask why.

After locating Root’s coat in the subway car, she stopped in front of the softly glowing monitor display.

“Thanks for the heads-up, I guess.”

There wasn’t any response, but she hadn’t really expected one. She turned away and headed back to take Root home.


	6. Defragmentation

Sometimes Root would come home from a mission scattered. She’d sit on the couch and stare into space for hours, laptop forgotten and half-sliding off her legs until Shaw came and rescued it. She didn’t seem distressed or like she was in shock. Just gone.

When she eventually snapped back to the present, it would be with a slight shake of her head. She’d look around the room, curiously, as if she couldn’t quite recall how she’d gotten there, and then act normally. Or what passed for normal where Root was concerned.

“You done staring at the wall?” Shaw asked after one such occurrence.

Root paused in the middle of smoothing out the ruffled cocktail dress she hadn’t changed out of yet. She looked like she was about to answer, but then only smiled and countered with: “Maybe I’ll stare at you now instead.”

Shaw could appreciate not wanting to talk about certain things, but she couldn’t stop trying to piece together the mystery. Root was usually hurtling forward at a million miles a minute. To see her still and empty was unsettling.

It took her a little while to see the pattern.

“Who were you this time?” she asked when Root snapped back to the present.

“Secretary at a law firm.” Root peeled off a black blazer Shaw had never seen before. “Had to get my hands on some documents in the company safe. One of the lawyers tried to get his hands on me, though, so I left him in the safe instead.”

Some thieves left a calling card at the scene of their crime, like a glove or rose or something dumb. Root seemed to leave behind unconscious and severely traumatized misogynists as her calling card. Shaw couldn’t risk telling her how much of a kick she got out of that without risking a round of smugness.

Another episode followed a few weeks later.

“Let me guess…professional dog walker?”

Her outfit wasn’t anything special this time, but it  _was_ coated in animal hair.

“Groomer, not walker,” Root corrected as she got up from the couch, leaving a layer of hair behind.

“Well, don’t get any ideas about putting bows on Bear.”

“But he’d look so good with them.” Root pulled a handful of orange ribbon from her pocket and dangled it in front of Shaw like she was a kitten she was trying to entice into playing with it.

Unnecessary pet accessories aside, it was always a relief to see her full of life again.

The next time it happened, Shaw decided it was time to have a talk.

“Do I have something on my face?” Root asked when she blinked out of her trance to find Shaw sitting in a chair across from her, arms crossed.

“You never used to space out after taking other identities. What changed?”

There was a slight flicker of uneasiness on Root’s face, quickly chased away by a lazy smile that was anything but authentic. “Hmmm, maybe sometimes I get too into my role. Side effects of being too good at lying, I suppose.”

It felt like a half-truth to Shaw. “Used to be you’d be a pilot in the morning, a barista in the afternoon, and a debutante in the evening. Now you’re one thing for a day or two and you go all space cadet and stare holes in my wall. What gives?”

Root chuckled and leaned back on the couch, stretching her arms along the back of it. “This is possibly the least subtle attempt anyone has ever made to psychoanalyze me.”

“Subtle isn’t my thing. I asked. Up to you if you answer.”

Root wasn’t making eye contact anymore, a slightly guilty expression on her face. But she looked to be gathering her thoughts rather than trying to escape the conversation, so Shaw waited quietly.

“It’s different now,” Root said at last. “It's….”

She spent a few minutes frowning at the bottle of nail polish she’d left on the coffee table before continuing. “When I take on an identity, I go all in. There can’t be any crack or flaw in my disguise, so I have to  _be_  that person. Live their life, think their thoughts. I mean not all my missions require that, but…” She trailed off.

“But the ones that do are the ones you end up spacing out on my couch after.” Shaw could sort of see where this was going. “You’ve been doing that most of your life though. You didn’t used to have to…reboot your brain or whatever.”

“It’s different now,” Root said again. She was picking at one fingernail, refusing to look up.

“Hold that thought.” Shaw stood up and headed to the kitchen, leaving Root behind to sort out her thoughts. She figured the amount of time it took to make some tea would let Root regroup.

“Here.”

Root smiled when Shaw handed her the warm mug. Her smile widened when Shaw sat down next to her on the couch rather than returning to her chair.

“Back before all this, it was never a problem,” Root said, sounding more sure of herself now. “It was a lot easier to switch on and off identities. I was still me, I mean, but me was…less complicated. I kept things at a very shallow level, I suppose. Never let myself feel anything too deeply or get too attached. In some ways, my own identity was the easiest to assume because it was the least involved in anything else.”

She held her mug of tea cradled in both hands and stared into it like there was a script at the bottom to read from.

“It’ll get cold if you don’t drink it,” Shaw pointed out. She wanted to say more, but she figured that Root wasn’t done yet and didn’t want to derail her now that she was finally explaining.

Root obediently sipped her tea. “Thanks. For the tea, I mean.”

“Right.”

“There’s a lot more distance to come back now.” Root chewed on her lip for a second. “There’s more of me. More things that matter, more things I’m tied to, more things I miss. When I stop being myself now, it takes longer to put myself back together after. Like all the pieces of me get mixed in with all the pieces of other identities and I have to sort them out.”

“Sounds like a headache. How do you…I mean…do you just sort through every thought in your brain and put them all in the correct boxes or something?” Shaw didn’t have anything even remotely approaching a frame of reference for this.

“Not quite that consciously, perhaps. I’m not even really actively aware of it. It’s all a bit dream-like, and more like…following trail markers to get out of the woods.”

“Trail markers?”

“Things that strongly connect me to, well, me. Some silly little things–” She wiggled her fingers with their painted black nails. “–but also things like computers, the subway. Her, of course. She always helps me come back.” Root fidgeted with her mug. “And you.”

There was the slightest hint of red in her cheeks. A bit ridiculous that she was embarrassed, in Shaw’s opinion, since she flirted as freely as breathing. But then this was something a lot more complex than some bad innuendo. Shaw got that. She just wasn’t sure what to do with it in this particular case.

“So why keep working missions that make you do this?”

“It’s my job. And I don’t dislike it. It’s just gotten a little more complicated.”

She finally looked over at Shaw and whatever she saw in Shaw’s face made her relax (Shaw hadn’t thought she had any particular expression on, but then Root had always had an uncanny knack for reading her). She placed her tea down on the coffee table and tentatively rested one of her hands on Shaw’s leg. When Shaw didn’t stiffen or move away, she settled her hand more firmly, palm still warm from the mug.

“She did offer to decrease the number of those types of missions, but that doesn’t seem fair. I don’t want to let Her down.”

Shaw held back an exasperated sigh. For someone who went on about how much her AI buddy cared about all of them, Root could be pretty willfully oblivious to how that caring extended to herself as well. But that wasn’t something she could fix in one afternoon.

“What can I do?” It still felt a little weird asking that, but she’d found out over time it was better than staying frustrated in silence. For both of them.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. But coming back here…it’s a good place to be. It makes the way back a lot shorter.”

“Then tell your boss that you always come here after a mission.” Though Shaw strongly suspected that the Machine was on the same page as her here.

Root didn’t say anything and the silence stretched out between them. Her fingers traced patterns across Shaw’s leg.

It didn’t happen again for a while (though Shaw was unsure if that was a coincidence or if the Machine was demonstrating the good sense that her analogue interface clearly lacked), but a month and a half later Shaw came home to the now-familiar sight of Root sitting motionless on her couch.

She looked her over with a tiny frown, taking in the details. Whoever Root had been this time had another fancy job that required formal business attire. The look suited Root in so far as all looks suited her, but it didn’t feel quite right.

She ended up sitting on the coffee table in front of Root, carefully lifting one of Root’s hands from her lap and placing it on her own knee. Root didn’t stir.

Shaw uncapped the small bottle of stinky cheap nail varnish that Root still hadn’t moved from the coffee table and went to work applying a coat of black polish to each of Root’s nails. She took her time, being careful not to smudge it, and staying fully focused on her task.

When she finished the last nail on Root’s other hand, Root’s fingers twitched on her leg. Shaw looked up to meet her eyes.

“Thought you hated the beautician business.” Root was all mischievous smiles and bright eyes again.

“Got bored. And you’re sitting on the tv remote.”

“I can think of much better things to be sitting on.”

From totally zoned out to hitting on her in under a minute. Shaw was almost impressed.

“You eaten yet? Dinner, I mean.”

Root shrugged. “Don’t really remember.”

Shaw sighed and headed to the kitchen. “I’ve got some leftovers I can heat up.”

Later that night, she let Root curl up on her and put her head on her chest.

“Getting cold lately,” Shaw said, one hand idly playing with a lock of Root’s hair. “Nice to have a human radiator again.”

“I missed you, too.”

“Hmph.” That level of sentimentality was frankly unnecessary.

“It’s nice to be back.” Root sounded half asleep now.

Shaw didn’t answer, but instead tucked Root’s head more firmly under her chin. She didn’t let herself fall asleep until Root’s eyes drooped shut and her breathing evened out. When she woke up the next morning, she found that Root had rolled off her in the night, but one of her hands still rested on Shaw’s chest, fingers splayed out, and each nail painted with a perfect coat of black polish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the wonderful and talented Maarika did an amazing sketch for this fic. [check it out](https://themaarika.tumblr.com/post/169513894873/sketch-based-on-defragmentation-by-asleepinawell)!
> 
> pasting in the ramblings i did in the tags on the original post:
> 
> This isn't really a firm head canon or anything, just an idea I'd been kicking around for a bit.
> 
> I think about identity a bunch when I think about Root. How she has such a firm identity in some ways and such an ephemeral one in others. 
> 
> There were parts of herself she didn't like and tried to avoid acknowledging. I think some of which she abandoned completely (or tried to despite certain people constantly bringing it up), and some stuff she came to terms with along the way. Which I think is part of why she lets herself act more childlike later on. Reclaiming bits of herself and getting to be that wide-eyed teenager in love. Doubly in love.


	7. Summer Night

A single drop of sweat trickled down Shaw’s side to land on the sheets of the bed. Somehow the heat wave seemed even more oppressive in the darkened bedroom than it had outside, like a solid weight pressing down on her.

She’d come home to find the AC settings jacked again, and the apartment almost unlivable in the gross New York City summer humidity. Even though cold air blasted from the vents now, it hadn’t helped enough yet to make a real difference. So she’d stripped down to a pair of boy shorts and a tank top and sprawled on top of the sheets, stretching herself out as much as humanly possible.

She rolled the bottom of her tank top up, and then, after barely a minute had passed, pulled it off altogether, flung it towards the laundry basket. It probably didn’t make it in, but there was no way she was getting up to check. She flopped back on the sheets and tried to will the air-conditioning to hurry up.

The sound of the front door opening pulled her out of the miserable, hazy fog she’d let herself drift off into.

“Shaw?”

Root’s silhouette was visible in the doorway of the bedroom, a slender shadow illuminated from behind by the dim light of the living room.

“Didn’t know if you were coming back tonight.” Shaw was glad she had, despite the fact it was so stuffy in here that even the idea of another person sounded awful.

There were two soft thuds that Shaw figured were Root kicking her shoes off, and then the bed shifted and Root was sitting next to her.

“Nice outfit.” Shaw’s eyes had long since adjusted to the dim room and she could see the stark lines of what looked like a business suit and jacket. She wondered who Root had been fooling with her serious attire today.

“You, too.” Root poked her bare stomach with one long finger. She tilted her head to one side and Shaw could see that she’d worn her glasses today.

Did they fog up in the humidity? She could imagine Root with her cheeks flushed from the heat, wiping her glasses off on her shirt, sweat clinging to her neck. Maybe Root would have to loosen a couple buttons on her shirt, too. Wouldn’t want to overheat.

The bed shifted again, pulling Shaw from her pleasant daydream.

“Someone’s all hot and bothered.” Root leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Shaw’s stomach where she’d poked her earlier, almost like an apology. The kiss was followed by a warm, wet lick of her tongue, brief and surprising. Shaw’s stomach muscles tensed involuntarily in response and Root chuckled, pleased.

“Too hot to tease.” Shaw wondered how Root hadn’t died from heat exhaustion in the suit jacket yet.

“I won’t tease then.”

She didn’t tease, but she kept things light and playful, hovering over Shaw to nip at her sweaty neck. Shaw managed to ignore the humidity long enough to shove Root’s jacket back off her shoulders and then slide her hands down to appreciate how the tight skirt fit over her ass. Root smiled against her neck and then raised her head to bite down softly on her ear lobe.

Things took a turn for the more serious, wandering hands, and ragged breaths. Root lay down on top of her, their bodies pressed close together, all hot and sweaty.

Too hot and sweaty.

They both pulled back at the same time. Root laughed softly at their dilemma and rested her forehead on Shaw’s shoulder for a brief moment before moving away.

“I hate the damn summer here.” Shaw fell back against the pillows with a defeated sigh.

“I’m inclined to agree at the moment.” Root climbed off the bed, shedding her remaining clothes as she went. She headed for the door of the bedroom and Shaw propped herself up on her elbows to look after her.

“Bed is big enough that we can probably both sprawl out without making this worse.”

She thought she saw the flicker of a smile on Root’s face.

“I’m only turning up the AC. I’ll be right back.”

Shaw nodded, laid back, and then shuffled over a little to try and find a cooler patch of sheet to lie on.

Root ended up stretched out on her stomach on the other side of the bed, almost too close and definitely too far away. She shifted around for a few minutes, obviously uncomfortable in the stifling air, before giving a little sigh and relaxing.

“We should go somewhere cold until this heat wave passes,” she said after a few quiet minutes had ticked by. “Maybe somewhere with glaciers. And penguins.”

“You start whining every time it drops below 70. Ten minutes on a glacier and I’d have to carry your complaining ass home.”

“It’s too gross in here for me to think of a good comeback.”

“Finally, a positive effect of the humidity.”

Root made a tiny ‘hmph’ noise (but Shaw could hear the hint of a laugh under it).

Silence stretched over the dark, stuffy room, both of them breathing slowly together in companionable misery.

She could tell when Root drifted off a few minutes later (and was once again deeply annoyed at Root’s ability to sleep in almost any conditions) by the way her body relaxed into the mattress and her breathing steadied out. Must have had a long day.

The AC finally started making a dent in the horrible humidity and Shaw tried to shift onto a less sweaty part of the bed to enjoy it. She ended up next to Root, looking at the long, graceful lines of her sleep-softened form. Her hair was damp with sweat near her temples and at the back of her neck.

Watching her felt peaceful. Felt quiet. The first time Shaw had happened upon her asleep, Root had woken up at the slightest scuff of her feet, a wild look in her eyes and her hand reaching for her gun. Shaw had been able to see the battle between fight and flight in her eyes before she’d taken in her surroundings and relaxed.

But these days Root slept deeply and soundly (though not enough), barely stirring even when Shaw got up for her morning run. When she slept next to Shaw, Root was untroubled (but never unprotected). This obvious trust pleased Shaw. It made her feel like she’d solved some intricate puzzle that had eluded everyone before her.

And maybe Root had solved a puzzle of her own (though Shaw thought reading her file was cheating a bit. No one had given her a file on Root) and, just maybe, that was why she could sleep so peacefully next to Shaw. There was a certainty in the way Root looked at her that had made her uneasy once, but now she understood that the certainty came without expectations or demands. Such a simple thing, and so freely and openly given.

Root’s thoughts were often loud and messy, so enormous and obvious that they chased away any doubts. And in the cacophony of Root, Shaw had found a quiet place to rest.

It was getting chilly now, the sweat unpleasantly cold on her bare skin. She could see faint goosebumps forming on Root’s arm and she struggled upright enough to rescue the top sheet from the foot of the bed and pull it over both of them.

Root stirred a little, but didn’t fully wake up, even when Shaw moved right up against her and threw an arm over her back. Root’s hair and neck smelled like sweat and her skin still felt fever-hot. The AC was probably on too high now, and if Shaw had been there by herself she would have needed more blankets soon. But with their warmth soaking into each other they chased away the cold.


	8. Primary Asset Good Boy

The apartment was dark and quiet when Shaw entered, and for a moment she wondered if anyone was actually there. But Root’s favorite boots were lying haphazardly in the middle of the floor–just waiting for some unsuspecting person to trip over them–and Bear’s leash was coiled (almost neatly) on the little table by the door.

The apartment had that feeling it got when she wasn’t the only one there. Once upon a time that would have set off alarm bells in her head, or made her feel crowded and uncomfortable at the least, but now it felt correct. Complete.

And even if she sighed in exasperation at the clearly-not-properly-cleaned shotgun on the coffee table and the tangle of cables on the kitchen counter, there wasn’t any real annoyance there.

She paused before heading into the bedroom to look across the darkened living room towards the little camera Root had mounted on the wall ages ago. It had creeped her out a little at first, but now it was kind of comforting to see the red light winking at her.

She threw it a two-finger salute before she left.

Root didn’t stir when Shaw slipped into the bedroom. She was curled up on one side, her hair a messy wave on the pillow, and her breathing deep and steady. It was a relief to see her sleeping soundly; that often didn’t happen when Shaw was away.

Maybe the reason for Root’s peaceful slumber was right next to her, where Bear was getting a little bit squished by the way she’d curled up around him (though he didn’t look put out at all). When he saw Shaw enter, Bear’s ears perked up and his tail thumped against the bed a few times. She held up a finger to her lips and he settled down immediately.

Neither of them had moved when Shaw got back from her quick shower, but, when she slid under the covers on her side of the bed, Root stirred slightly.

“Go back to sleep,” Shaw said quietly, but Root was reaching over Bear and fumbling along the mattress with one hand trying to find her. She slid over far enough that Root’s hand bumped into her. Root wrapped her fingers around Shaw’s upper arm and gave a small, happy sigh.

She was asleep again seconds later and Shaw drifted off soon after.

Shaw woke up the next morning to find that Root had tried to curl up around her during the night. The problem, though, was that Bear was still between them so mostly what had happened was the poor dog had gotten smushed while shielding Shaw from the attempted cuddling. Shaw untangled herself from the mess and gave Bear a pat on the head as a reward.

Normally she’d have taken Bear with her on her morning run, but today she left him in bed just in case Root hadn’t fully registered last night that she was back and freaked out when she woke up dogless. Shaw would have to give him an extra treat later to make up for it.

Root was up and about when she got back, sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter wearing her pajamas, and staring at her laptop. She looked up when Shaw came in.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d dreamt that you’d come back. You should really scatter some of your things around next time so it’s obvious. Even your toothbrush is in the exact same place.”

“You make enough of a mess for both of us.” Shaw motioned at the general state of the living room.

Root failed to look even a little contrite.

“I thought I must have imagined you getting in bed last night since you didn’t take Bear with you this morning.”

“He looked comfortable.” He’d looked smothered.

“I never realized how clingy he was,” Root mused. “Curled up almost on top of me every night and wouldn’t let me out the door without him.”

Shaw exchanged a look with Bear, who was stretched out on the kitchen floor. She was really glad right now that he couldn’t talk.

“He probably missed me or something. Thought when you were leaving that you were going to wherever I was.” Sounded logical enough, Shaw figured.

“He insisted on going everywhere with me. Even missions. He actually took down a perp I got into a bit of a brawl with.” Root looked down at the dog, speculatively.

“Sounds like he showed up Reese, anyway.” Unfair to poor Reese, (especially since he’d also been deprived of dog-sitting Bear while she was away this time, though she thought he’d probably figured out why), but Shaw wanted to move away from the topic.

Root shut the lid of her laptop. “Hmm, I wonder if…” She froze, staring at Shaw as if she’d somehow only now registered that Shaw had just gotten back from a run and was standing all flushed and sweaty in the kitchen.

Shaw didn’t smirk, but she did possibly flex her arms  _very_ slightly. Root’s eyes went unfocused.

“I’m going to go take a shower,” Shaw said. “You coming?”

Root blinked a few times, refocusing. “Quite possibly.”

Shaw snorted softly at that. She turned to head out of the kitchen, and Root slid off the stool to join her. Somehow they didn’t make it into the hall and Root ended up pressed up against her, kissing her thoroughly while her arms wrapped around her perhaps just a tiny bit tighter than they usually would have been.

“Miss me?” Root asked when they broke apart. She was smiling mischievously, the question meant as a tease rather than anything serious.

“Could be.”

Root’s face lit up in surprised delight at the almost-admission.

Root didn’t need her to answer the little teasing questions, Shaw knew, but sometimes she liked to anyway.

“Shall we move the welcome home party to the shower?” Root asked, tugging at the bottom of Shaw’s shirt.

“I’m not the one who detoured us up against a wall.” Mostly true.

Root smirked and stepped back before gesturing for Shaw to pass. Shaw hesitated and looked back into the kitchen.

“Uh, actually, can you go get the water started? I’ll be there in a second.”

Root looked a little curious but agreed easily enough, dropping an unnecessary kiss on the tip of Shaw’s nose before wandering away down the hall. Shaw watched her go and scrubbed at her nose with one hand, indignant. How could she ever have let herself end up with someone who wore pajama pants covered with pictures of some dumb penguin?

(Which, now that she thought about it was almost definitely the damn Linux penguin because this was Root so of course it was. And she couldn’t even mock her for it because then she’d have to admit that she’d recognized it. Unfair).

Once Root had vanished down the hall, Shaw went back into the kitchen and hunched down next to Bear.

“Good boy,” she told him, scratching his head and neck. “Know it’s exhausting keeping her out of trouble.”

Bear licked her in the face.

She hadn’t been quite sure he’d understood what she’d asked him to do before she left, but he’d done even better than she’d hoped. This was the first time she’d been on a trip where she hadn’t gotten a message from the Machine at some horrible hour prompting her to call Root, or had to patch Root up when she’d come home to find that she’d been careless and gotten hurt again.

Bear had helped both of them sleep better.

“Sameen?” Root’s voice echoed down the hall. “It’s no fun getting all wet without you.”

Shaw rolled her eyes and gave Bear one more pat on the head before she went to go join Root.


	9. Rhymes With 'Stakeout'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collaboration I did with artist Maarika. Check out her part of it [here](https://themaarika.tumblr.com/post/171349724463/femslash-february-collab-i-did-with-asleepinawell)!

* * *

It was freezing on the rooftop, even in the little corner Shaw had tucked herself away in, but she had a couple of blankets, and her sniper rifle to keep her warm.

Every so often she looked down at the apartment building across the way through her binoculars. Their number was sound asleep and they were pretty sure he wouldn’t be in danger in his own apartment, but it paid to be careful. Couldn’t have him wandering off in the middle of the night.

She narrowed her eyes when she heard a thump from behind her. She didn’t bother to turn around though; she knew exactly what that noise meant.

“Hey, Sameen. Fancy running into you here.”

Root plopped down next to Shaw and handed her a thermos.

“Brought you a little something.”

Shaw took a cautious sip. It was hot apple cider with something a little stronger mixed in. Definitely bought Root the right to huddle up against her the way she was.

“Wondered when you were going to show up. Figured you’d still be sulking about how I had to cancel our plans for this.”

Root tipped her head to one side and smiled mischievously. “I prefer to think of it as ‘relocated’ rather than ‘cancelled’.”

“We’re on a freezing cold rooftop and I’m supposed to be watching our number.”

Root took her binoculars and looked through them. She shrugged. “Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon. And as for the cold…” She held up a folded blanket. “I brought extras.”

“One more blanket isn’t going to help much out here.” Shaw noticed the other thing Root was holding: a coil of thin cord. “What’s the rope for?”

Root looked pleased with herself and gave one of her fail-winks instead of an answer.

Shaw realized just what Root had intended to do with the rope and rolled her eyes. Bondage on a cold rooftop? Really? “This is never going to work.”

“Won’t know until we try. And besides–” Root smiled in that way that Shaw knew meant she was about to get off a really bad pun. “–stake-out rhymes with make-out, Sameen.”

Shaw groaned.

“What else are you going to do up here for the next six hours?” Root asked.

She had a good point, but….

“Okay, but wait here for a minute.” She reached down to grab the coil of rope Root had so thoughtfully brought along. “And I’m going to have to borrow this.”

She needed to run a fast errand so she could devote her full attention to letting Root know how awful her pun was.

* * *

Shaw woke up when she heard Reese’s voice over the comms.

“Shaw, are you there? How’s our number doing?”

Shaw struggled to sit up without dislodging Root who was curled up against her under the blankets. She grabbed the binoculars and looked over at their number’s apartment.

Through the window she could see their number still securely tied to the chair where she’d left him last night. He didn’t look too pleased, but whatever. If he couldn’t move, then he couldn’t get himself in trouble, and she had time to focus on more important things. Everyone won here.

“Safe and sound, Reese. Get your ass over here. It’s your turn.”

Root stirred next to her. Shaw wondered if they should do something about the very obvious disarray both of their hair was in before Reese got here. Not that he’d be fooled.

Root tried to tug her back down.

“Our number is awake,” Shaw objected.

“The Machine will let us know if he manages to escape.”

Well, there went her only argument.

“Blankets, hot drinks, your electronic better-half spying for us. Is there anything you didn’t think of?”

“Mmm, mostly I was thinking about you, Shaw.”

Sappy, but whatever.

Shaw let herself be pulled back down. Hopefully Reese took his time getting there.


	10. Hide And Seek

A single drop of sweat rolled down Shaw’s neck and she wiped it away almost without noticing. It wasn’t just hot out tonight, it was the perfect mix of heat and humidity to make the air feel heavy and still. Wrapped in the dark beneath the trees of Central Park, the world seemed to move in slow motion, almost as if underwater.

She should have gone home over an hour ago, back when Reese had taken over trailing their number for the night, but instead she’d chosen to remain sitting here in the dark, sweating in silence. 

Something tapped Shaw on the arm and she looked down to see Root offering her the water bottle they’d been sharing for the last hour. She took it without comment.

There was only a little water left in the bottle now. It had been full and still cold when Root had appeared out of nowhere with it. She wasn’t sure if the water bottle had been an excuse for Root to join her here, or if the Machine had decided to keep tabs on her hydration levels now, but either way she hadn’t minded when Root had sat down next to her on the bench.

Root had been unusually quiet the whole time, though it wasn’t one of her bad silences where something was wrong. It was a companionable silence, and possibly the reason Shaw had decided to stay out here despite the weather.

She looked sideways at Root out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t mind if Root knew she was looking (and she knew Root  _really_  didn’t mind if she looked), but she liked that she sometimes got to see what Root was like when she didn’t know anyone was watching.

There was something relaxed and unassuming about her under the faint glow of the lamp that lit up the nearby path. Her hair was damp with sweat, especially near her temples and the back of her neck, and her eyes were half-shut. There was a tiny half-smile on her lips that for once didn’t look self-satisfied.

Shaw gently shook the almost-empty bottle back and forth, speculatively watching the water slosh around.

“Here.” 

She held it back out to Root without looking at her. Root’s fingers brushed hers when she took the bottle back and Shaw felt the smallest sliver of regret that the contact only lasted a second.

Root turned the bottle around and around in her hands and took a breath as if to say something. But in the end she only shook her head and smiled to herself as if in on some joke the rest of the world was ignorant of.

She finally turned to Shaw.

“Let’s walk to the lake,” Root said.

“What for?” Shaw asked, but she was already standing up to lead the way.

* * *

 

“It doesn’t seem real, does it?”

At Root’s question, Shaw turned away from watching bugs flit across the surface of the water. She thought about playing dumb–pretending that she was unaware of the surrealness of a muggy evening in the park, where time stretched out without explanation–but something told her this wasn’t the time for banter and games.

She watched a group of women passing by, all speaking softly as if afraid to disturb the heavy hush the evening heat had brought on the world.

“Reminds me of summers as a kid, how they existed in their own little time bubble, you know?”

She regretted saying it the moment the words passed her lips, but Root’s entire face lit up, delighted with even the tiniest piece of herself that Shaw chose to share.

“I remember playing hide and seek,” Shaw said, wanting badly to give even a little bit more. “Can’t remember exactly where or how old I was, but we’d play in some park during the summer. It was always disgustingly humid, too.” She tried to recall any more details, but only came up with one important enough to share. “I was way better at it than the other kids. None of them ever came close to finding me.”

Root’s smile slid from delight to amusement. “Well, obviously.” She tapped the top of the water bottle against her chin thoughtfully. “Wanna play?”

“Hide and seek? Now? Seriously?” Sometimes it was hard to tell when Root was kidding.

“Afraid you’ve met your match?” Root’s eyes danced with childlike glee.

“Having an AI in your ear is cheating.”

“She’ll stay out of it.”

Shaw actually considered it for a moment. Something about the warm night made the ludicrous idea almost inviting. But then she thought about searching endlessly in the dark park on her own, unable to find Root and stuck alone in an unbreakable silence.

“Maybe when it’s not like a thousand percent humidity.”

Root pouted her lower lip out a little, but she didn’t press, and she only nodded when, ten minutes later, Shaw suggested they head home.

* * *

 

“There’s really no one out tonight,” Root said from where she was leaning next to the window, staring out at the street below. “Guess the humidity doesn’t make everyone nostalgic.”

They’d chosen to leave the lights off in an unspoken agreement, and Root’s face was lit only by the lights from outside.

Seated on the couch, Shaw watched Root watch the city.

“Do you think…?” Root trailed off and Shaw waited patiently, but she didn’t speak again.

“Do I think what?”

When Root didn’t answer, Shaw slid off the couch and made her way barefoot across the dark apartment to stand behind Root. Tentatively she slid her arms around Root’s waist and pressed lightly against her back. Root’s hands came up to rest on the backs of her arms and she leaned back into Shaw.

“Do I think what?” Shaw asked again, this time into the back of Root’s neck where her hair was damp with sweat. She wasn’t quite tall enough to easily rest her chin on Root’s shoulder, but she didn’t mind so much right now.

“Do you think we would have gotten along if we’d met as kids? Played hide and seek in the park?”

There was a longing in Root’s question that Shaw wasn’t sure what to do with.

“You probably would’ve tried to tie me to the swingset within ten minutes of us meeting.” She felt more than heard Root’s chuckle. “And I can’t even imagine how bad your lame lines would’ve been back then.”

“So what you’re saying is that you would have found me irresistible.”

Shaw couldn’t help but smile. “You wish.” She breathed out slowly against Root’s skin. “Yeah, I probably would have.”

She didn’t know if she really believed that or not, but that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was Root’s hands squeezing her arms for just a second, and the soft smile on her face when she looked back over her shoulder at Shaw.

Shaw tightened her arms a little. She’d never figured out how Root always managed to say the right thing at the right time, but sometimes she managed to as well.

“Come on,” she said as she stepped back and tugged at Root. “Bedtime.”

“Are you going to tuck me in?”

Shaw rolled her eyes at Root’s teasing. But she also smiled.

“Just come to bed, Root.” 

Neither of them said anything else until after the were in bed, Root curled up against Shaw’s side despite the heat.

“I definitely would have found you,” Root murmured, pulling Shaw back from the edge of sleep.

“Hmm?”

“If we’d played hide and seek. I’d have been much better at it than the other kids. I would have found you.”

Shaw found that oddly reassuring.

“You probably would have.”

She thought she might have let Root find her.

Root nodded in satisfaction and they both fell asleep a few minutes later.

Shaw dreamed about a dark park in the summer heat, frozen in time and full of kids playing hide and seek. And two kids who were never found, but who always hid together.


End file.
